On my little boat, I don’t usually worry much about chafe. But during a minor blow during which I put my 6-kg Rocna anchor to the test, I was a bit surprised to see that my anchor line had chafed a bit more than I would expect for a simple overnight stay, at the bow roller. The anchor held fine, but it became obvious that I would need some sort of chafe protection for the rode, or else I would have to switch to all chain.

So I was pleased to learn recently about Fjord’s Chafe-Pro product line, which seems to enjoy a good reputation, judging from the fact that it’s used by the US Navy, Coast Guard, Army, Military Sealift Command, NOAA, and MARAD!

Chafe-Pro is designed to be a simple, cost-effective means for preventing chafe abrasion to synthetic lines such as nylon, Kevlar, Spectra, HMW-PE, and other polyethylene and polyester lines. Commercial Grade Chafe-Pro is made from a rugged, highly abrasion-resistant nylon, and it is intended for use on yachts, tug boats, and ships; they also offer Yacht Grade models that are suitable for use on small craft.

FJORD developed Chafe-Pro to be installed or removed anywhere along a line in a matter of seconds, requiring no lashings or lacings to secure it to lines. All models are downward compatible relative to line sizes, giving boaters a lot of flexibility; buy what you need for your largest line, and use it on whatever line happens to need protection.

So hold on: How does this all work? I poked around on the website to find the instructions:

1. If possible, lay the Chafe-Pro unit and line on a flat surface.
2. Start at the edge and place line on the Velcro “hooks” in the desired protected area. Once hooked, begin rolling the line and Chafe-Pro together until the unit is snugly rolled up.
3. Lock the Chafe-Pro unit by interlocking the Velcro edge units.
4. To move the position on the line, simply remove the Chafe-Pro, adjust to the desired location and secure.

So it stays put on the line because the Velcro “hooks” grab the fibers of the rope being protected. That’s pretty clever!

I don’t have any direct experience with Chafe-Pro, so I’m interested in feedback from other boaters: What do you use for chafe protection?

RLW over at BoatBits always has something interesting to say, and today is no exception. The fact that he’s recommending another one of my neighbors makes it noteworthy.

See, Ed Louchard at ZephyrWerks in Port Townsend fabricates delrin sheaves with bronze bushings, in pretty much any size you need.

Sounds expensive, doesn’t it?

Let’s see what BoatBits has to say in this post, entitled “Silly pricing on boat stuff":

So what should a really good sheave cost? Well take a look at Zephyrwerks who makes really excellent sheaves on a semi-custom basis. They use top quality materials and their workmanship is first rate… A single sheave will run you $38. If you buy more the cost comes down…

So why does the discount marine store sell cheap injected plastic crap with sharp edges for $79? Well, just maybe, it is because we as boat folk are stupid and confuse high price with quality or just don’t know better… Either way it is in our own best interest to give a little more thought to the stuff we install in our boats and the prices we pay.

So next time you need to replace sheaves, see if ZephyrWerks has what you need, eh?

With apologies to They Might Be Giants, and in appreciation of their 1990 song “Particle Man“:

Aluminum man, aluminum man;
Aluminum man meets stainless man.
They have a fight, stainless wins;
Stainless man…

If you don’t know the song, that probably doesn’t mean much. But I was motivated to rewrite the lyrics to that song by today’s post over at Capt’n Pauley’s Virtual Boatyard:

An aluminum mast step coupled with an aluminum mast sounds like a good idea and it was. That is, until a PO (previous owner) decided to add a stainless steel mast base organizer under the aluminum mast step casting.

A mast base organizer is a piece of stainless steel with four ears, one on each side of the rectangular center. The ears are turned up at an angle and have holes spaced in them. The holes are for attaching turning blocks for the various lines coming off the mast. The turning blocks then aim the lines at their respective winches or cleats.

While they are handy things to have, the combination of aluminum castings, stainless steel and saltwater is not a good combination. The less noble metal, in this case the cast aluminum mast base, corrodes. And this one had done so. My first inkling of trouble was the fact that the fasteners were locked in corrosion and had to be cut away.

You can see the remains of the corroded mast base, the organizer, and some progress toward a solution in this image:

Definitely keep reading! The finished product, retaining the aluminum mast AND the stainless steel organizer, but without any metal-to-metal contact between the two, is a miracle of do-it-yourselfer ingenuity:

When I first encountered the Wichard Gyb’Easy boom brake, I thought “Hey, cool, a kind of self-tacking preventer”.

And then I thought “Why not just use a conventional figure-eight descender, like climbers use?”

And then I started doing some research. It turns out my thoughts aren’t all that original; lots of people have wondered if an inexpensive figure-eight descender could work.

There are a couple of discussion threads (here and here) over at Sailnet.com, for instance. And another thread at CruiserLog, which includes a suggestion that you have your own boom brake friction device fabricated for a fraction of the price. Asked and answered, as well, over at the Seven Seas Cruising Association and Cruisers Forum.

Oh, and to clarify, this is not a preventer at all. It doesn’t “prevent” a gybe, but it does slow down the boom when it swings across. So it’s a boom brake. Just wanted to clarify that.

Any of my talented readers have experience with this device, or with a conventional figure-eight?

Capt’n Pauley’s Virtual Boatyard is already full of great ideas, and now he’s launching a new feature called Capt’n Pauley’s Sketchbook. The first sketch is a line storage basket made from a plain old plastic wastepaper basket and some teak battens.

Because sometimes the best boating gear solutions are those you come up with yourself. Or steal from folks on the internet!

An easy way to double the life of your anchor rode is to swap the rope part end-for-end when the rope-to-chain splice begins to show significant wear. This places the well-used outboard end inboard, where it won’t get as much use, and puts the relatively unused inboard portion out front where it will get used all the time. Obviously, if the rope is worn so far that you don’t trust it at all, you ought to replace it entirely.

In either case, your chain is probably fine, and you’ll need to splice the rope to the chain. There are riggers in every maritime town ready to do this for you.

Or, you can do it yourself, as I’ve done here. I splice eyes in the end of three-strand rope all the time, and I’ve done a few backsplices. This was my first rope-to-chain splice, and I was a little bit intimidated about it. Rope to chain…sounds difficult.

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I just finished teaching a class on Friday afternoons to first- through third-graders at my daughter’s school.

Fisheries Supply was kind enough to donate the rope we used for the class, so everybody had a nice ten-foot length of line to work with. Special thanks to the good folks at Fisheries.

I taught these kids how to tie a few basic knots that, really, every adult ought to know: round turn and two half-hitches, bowline, figure-eight, and double-overhand. They learned several others, as well, but since I didn’t always have the same students from week to week, I tried to make sure everybody could tie those four.

Some of these kids really picked this up quickly. Others, I think, just liked the class because they got to play with rope!

One first grader even managed an eye splice in three-strand rope. I showed her what to do, but she did all the work. Her dad was in the US Navy, so I figured I better send her home with something really impressive.

Oh, I also learned a few rope magic tricks to keep them interested. That worked pretty well. Any time the class started to get out of hand, I could just gather them all together by telling them that I was about to demonstrate the secret behind one of my tricks. Sneaky!

Rope for standing rigging, eh? Yeah, I’m familiar with the concept. It’s obsolete technology, from the era of wooden sailing ships, and it looks something like this: Apparently, my thinking is somewhat out of date. Modern materials technology is giving new life to "old-school" rigging principles.

Colligo Marine claims that synthetic rigging is cheaper and lighter than conventional wire rigging. It certainly could be easier to service and repair "in the field".

I’m re-reading Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, and once again I’m amazed at a man-of-war crew’s ability to fabricate almost anything the vessel might need from onboard stores of cordage, spars, and fittings. With Colligo’s Synthetic Systems line of rigging hardware and a quantity of raw Dynex Dux 12-strand line aboard, it’s possible to imagine the crew of a small bluewater cruising sailboat being able to replace—or at least jury-rig—virtually any piece of standing rigging without outside assistance.

I’d be interested in learning more from cruising or racing skippers who have rigged and sailed boats with this system. How does it all work out in the real world?

Previously, I explained why I’ve concluded that a combination parbuckle/boarding ladder may be the best person-in-the-water (PIW) recovery device for use on a small, low-freeboard boat like my C-Dory. It’s time for me to put my theory to the test, and for that, I need some equipment. First, of course, I need the parbuckle/ladder!

I wasn’t able to find one commercially available in just the right size. So I decided to make my own. Well, to be honest, I decided to have it made for me. I don’t really have a sewing machine for this sort of work, at least until I get one of those Sailright Ultrafeed machines we saw at Strictly Sail Pacific. I asked around in Ballard (a Seattle neighborhood with strong seafaring roots), figuring that there had to be some sort of rigger capable of building what I wanted. Sure enough!

George Broom’s Sons is the place to go. Actually, it’s been the place to go since 1910! (more…)

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Remember the little article we did on the Splicing Nut? We got a demo from Steve Brennan, designer of this smart and very useful product as the Seattle Boatshow a couple months ago. I caught up with him at Strictly Sail Pacific and got the demo on video this time. Watch and see just how quick and easy it is to put a strong loop in the end of a line. And get the scoop on the strength of Splicing Nut compared to a conventional splice. No tools needed, but if you’re demoing it all day at a boatshow, you’ll want some gloves!